Grilled Portobello and Farro Salad

Peyton Hughes of Iowa City, Iowa, writes: "My extended family met for a reunion in Boston a few months ago. For our last night together, we decided it would be appropriate to have dinner at Finale. I'll never forget the unusual grilled portobello salad."

Farro, or spelt, is a cereal grain that's been eaten in southern Europe for ages.

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Excellent and so easy. I have been making this for dinner guests this summer with a simple arugula side salad. Big hit every time. Also agree with others here that you only need about half the oil listed in the recipe.

Farro and spelt are different! I used spelt and it took 45 minutes and used only 2.5 cups of water.
Instead of using portobellos I grilled brown mushrooms and zuchinni on the bbq and then sliced into thick slices and tossed with the spelt once cooked and cooled.
I also followed others instruction and used only half the oil.
It is a super salad and will make again.

Wonderful! I did make it slightly
differently, but I'm sure it would be
really good the "original" way too. I
couldn't find spelt or farro in my
grocery, and I had to get something to
use so we could have it for dinner
that night. I picked cracked wheat.
It may be very different from spelt,
I've never had spelt, but the cracked
wheat still made an extremely tasty
dish. I also couldn't find currants,
so I just used dark raisins.
Accidentally I didn't put the oil in,
and I don't think that would hurt it
to add it next time. We had more than
we needed for dinner with the 'bellas,
and it was still quite tasty the next
day on its own for lunch. I'd
certainly make it again!

Ok, I'm just about to make this salad, just
read the reviews and just have to point out
that if you ask for smelt in the health food
store instead of spelt as the cook from
Bethlehem suggested you are going to get
fish. I'm guessing that would be a one fork
experience at best...

This recipe was very good - though even
after cutting the oil in half, it was still way
too oily! 12 TBL for 4 servings?!! I would
have thought it was a mis-print except
there are the separate references to 7
and 5 TBL as well. Funnily enough,
virtually the same recipe was on the box
of spelt I'd bought at Trader Joe's - also
using 12 TBL of olive oil!
I used 3.5 in the salad and 2.5 on the
mushrooms, and I would cut the salad
amount down to at most 2 T next time.
Can't imagine what it would be like with
the whole 12!
The oiliness tended to dominate, but there
were still some good flavors. I will try it
again with less oil, I think it has potential.

This was a very flavorful and different salad. I had some difficulty finding farro (sold in health food stores as smelt), but I'm glad I did. I served it as part of vegetarian meal beginning with the cold morrocan tomato soup. The farro salad is also good served as a side dish the next night.